Schmidt Select Cereal Beverage Near Beer Flat Top Can

Schmidt Select Cereal Beverage Can

This 12-ounce flat top container held Schmidt Select, a non-alcoholic brew packaged by the Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Marked across the lower front with "A Cereal Beverage," the can features the brand's signature oval cartouche framed by a stylized golden wreath of hops and grain leaves. The upper rim area designates twelve fluid ounces, while the packaging includes a mandatory alcohol statement certifying that the beverage contains less than one-half of one percent alcohol. As a steel flat top produced in the mid-twentieth century, the design illustrates post-Prohibition packaging standards for non-alcoholic malt beverages, requiring explicit cereal beverage labeling alongside formal alcohol disclosures.

The Schmidt Select brand originated during the Prohibition era, when breweries nationwide adapted to federal restrictions on intoxicating liquors. To maintain facility operations and retain cellar workers, Jacob Schmidt reformulated its offerings into near beer—a dealcoholized cereal brew falling strictly below legal alcohol limits. Following the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, the brewery retained the Select label to serve patrons abstaining from alcohol, drivers, and dry jurisdictions that prohibited standard beer. Marketed throughout the Upper Midwest, the brand retained the familiar Schmidt crest to provide instant visual recognition on store shelves beside the company's full-strength beers.

The Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company traced its operational roots to Christopher Stahlmann’s 1855 Cave Brewery on West Seventh Street in Saint Paul. Bavarian-born brewmaster Jacob Schmidt relocated to Minnesota after brewing across the Midwest, eventually acquiring a stake in the North Star Brewery. When a fire destroyed that location at the turn of the century, Schmidt purchased the former Stahlmann property and erected an imposing, castle-like brewhouse. Under Schmidt and the Bremer family, the brewery expanded into a prominent regional establishment. It navigated Prohibition through non-alcoholic products and continued operating until being acquired by Pfeiffer Brewing Company in 1954, later becoming part of Associated Brewing and ultimately G. Heileman.

Among breweriana collectors, mid-century near beer cans represent a specialized niche of commercial brewing history. Because non-alcoholic cereal beverages were filled in significantly smaller volumes than standard lagers, surviving cans from regional Midwestern breweries offer an uncommon artifact illustrating how regional brewers diversified their lines during the flat top era.